THE CHANK BANGLE INDUSTRY. 
413 
classic in appearence, apparently belonging to early Buddhist times. With the Kistna 
specimens fragments of chank bangles are also associated. 
Bellary. 
(a) Manakurti Hill, 1353. “ Columella of a chank shell, upper end ground.” 
Found at the same place were a small flake scraper of chert and a small quartz flake. 
[Note. — Similar fragments of chank columellas are used by some hill tribes in N.-E. 
India as ear or hair ornaments.] 
( b ) Nagaldinni, Adoni Taluq, 1442/77 — 7 9. Three fragments of chank bangles 
came from made ground, east of Nagaldinni, Adoni Taluq, 40 miles north-east of 
Bellary, associated with a large number of neolithic flakes and cores of chert and 
agate. 
( c ) Nagaldinni, Adoni Taluq, 1456/16 — 5 7. A large number (42) of chank 
bangles were also turned up by the plough in fields at an old site near the Tower 
Rock, Pete, 3 miles west of Nagaldinni, associated with shell beads (Cowry, Natica 
and Nerita) and pottery which Bruce Foote sa}^ is “ probably of Iron Age ” (all these 
bangle fragments lack ornamentation ; they are of the simplest and most primitive 
form and bespeak either lack of skill on the part of the workers or primitive taste on 
that of the wearers). Santal and low-caste Hindu women in Bengal at the present 
day wear somewhat similar bangles in the form of gauntlets consisting of from 8 to 
12 separate rings. 
( d ) Mugati, Adoni Taluq, 1457/38 & 39. Two fragments of chank bangles were 
associated with numerous flakes, cores, strikers, etc., of chert and agate obtained 
from a site on a low hill, west of Mugati, Adoni Taluq. 
( e ) Sandurvallam, 1516, B, C & D. At a site west of Sandurvallam, 15^ miles 
north-east of Bellary, two fragments of worked chank bangles and a working frag- 
ment of chank shell were found. The only objects associated with these were a portion 
of the lid of an earthenware vessel and a piece of reddle or earthy haematite ground 
upon one side. [The discovery of a single working fragment is insufficient evidence 
that this was once the site of a bangle factory ; in Bengal to-day the working sections 
cut in the Dacca workshops are largely distributed to other towns to be carved and 
polished.] 
(/) Hampasagra, on the Tungabhadra, 1518/5 — 23. The discovery of eighteen 
fragments of chank bangles and a shoulder portion of shell sawn off as in the cutting 
up of shells for bangles, from made ground on the right bank of the Tungabhadra, east 
of Hampasagra, 53 miles west of Bellary, furnishes evidence of the extensive use of 
chank bangles in ancient days in this neighbourhood. With them were beads made 
of entire Paludina shells, and fragments of Cypraea moneta and of a Nerita. The 
fragments show considerable skill in engraving patterns upon the outer surface — 
Mr. Bruce Foote places the age as late neolithic or early Iron Age (p. 75, Vol. II). 
It is quite probable that this was the site of a bangle factory for while the presence 
of a working section is not sufficient evidence, that of a waste fragment such as is 
cut off the shell when sawing it into working sections, is almost conclusive, because 
